In this book, Hughes provides a brief discussion of almost every play to have been produced on the London stage during this period. The book is an excellent resource for discovering what kinds of plays were popular and what the conventions of playwriting, production, and theatre attendance were like during the Restoration.

Scouten, Arthur H., and Robert D. Hume, "'Restoration Comedy' and its Audiences," in The Rakish Stage: Studies in English Drama 1660-1800, edited by Robert D. Hume, Southern Illinois University Press, 1983.

Reading and analyzing plays, even accessing records of how they were produced, can foster a better understanding of their meaning. Knowing the composition and expectations of audiences during this early period of modern theater, is, however, much more difficult. Scouten and Hume have researched the subject thoroughly in an effort to reconstruct a picture of Restoration theatre's...